OC Secures Access to $170,000 Special Effects Software

Thursday, Sep 2, 2010

OC’s Jeff Price, an art and design faculty member, has secured access for students to use $170,000 worth of special effects software known as Houdini. The high quality, 3-D animation effects package was developed by Side Effects Software out of Canada. It is highly regarded in the film and television industry and was used heavily in the “Transformers” movies.

According to Price, the program costs about $6,500 per seat for professionals.

“We now have 26 copies,” he said. “We’ll be the only school in the Midwest teaching this other than Texas A&M and Texas Tech. Our students are pretty pumped about it.”

Price secured the seat licenses by talking to a representative of the software company at a conference for video game designers and instructors.

Earlier this year OC’s gaming design program, which is directed by Price, was named among the top 50 undergraduate programs in the country by The Princeton Review and GamePro magazine. OC was the only school in Oklahoma and among just a few faith-based universities in the nation to make the list.